Nice to wake up in a decent room but upsetting to listen to the excruciating news reports about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent installation of the Taliban. Took a moment to reflect on how lucky I was to be here, safe, comfortable and on such an exciting adventure and not one of the thousands of desperate citizens attempting to flee, or even worse and having to actually stay on there.
I wanted an early start in order to avoid a projected downpour at midday - love the Weather Radar app, so accurate - but I didn't get away until about 9.00AM, after my first Eastern European trip to a supermarket which most definitely has a different feel than any Western one. Less easy to find fruit and vegetables, I found.
Bratislava looked gorgeous in the early morning light, with a particularly striking memorial to Slovak National Uprising of 1944 in the original market square, but which is now the main focal point for all mass celebrations and meetings.
However, within a few minutes I found myself up on the main motorway out of the city for some reason and it was truly terrifying to get off of it. Definitely the low point of the day.
The weather was great but the journey very dull. Very noticeable are the quality of the roads which are not a patch on the smooth, velvety luxuriousness of the Austrians. If they had been better, I would have quite liked to do the 200KM trip to Budapest in one go but as the predicted clouds started gathering, I installed myself in a local café in the town of Mosonmagyaróvár which really is the dental capital of Europe, with highest number of dentists in ratio to the total population anywhere in the world. As I sat in the café, I noticed that almost everyone walking around the area was either wearing scrubs or cradling their jaws with a pained look. Note to self, if ever I need expensive dental treatment, this is where I will come.
I had been bumping into a couple of guys from Germany all morning, most notably by the dyke at Čunovo which is where decisions on direction had to be taken. We were all going in the same direction but I wanted to take what I suspected was a smoother route. However we swapped hostel addresses with a view to meeting up later.
Once the rain died down, I set off from Mosonmagyaróvár along a very bumpy road to Győr. I realised that I was now in Hungary, which makes only a 24 Hr stop in Slovakia, but hey - its still another country right. It kept breaking into showers as I stopped at various bus shelters along the way, which made progress very slow and in the end it was only another short day of 80KM.
I bumped into Luca and Paul who were waiting at the hostel. They were very cool guys, both 3D printers by trade and used to cycling a lot together. The hostel itself turned out to be awful, with a dingy room at the top which I decided to haul my bicycle all the way up instead of leaving downstairs which somehow didn't feel too safe. If there had been a fire, the place was a death-trap with zero chance of escape. The shower room was small and my neighbours either side were grumpy, unfriendly and downright miserable.
However we all decided to hit the sights of Győr and it was a pretty nice town in fact. Clean with a nice vibe, we had a couple of beers and went in search of goulash; when in Hungary and all that.
We found an atmospheric resto and had some of the local fish as well as goulash. Passable, but great evening with smashing company. Definitely made up for the crappy weather and damp, pokey hostel.
On the way home, we passed by a statue of a stark bollock naked rower in a main square where lots of people tend to congregate. Bit random.
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